1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to rehabilitation apparatuses and, more particularly, to a gait rehabilitation machine for assisting in a patient's gait rehabilitation and a method of using the gait rehabilitation machine.
2. Description of Related Art
People with paraplegia resulting from spinal cord injuries, strokes, nerve injuries, etc. rely on medical assistive apparatuses in their daily lives not only to move and position their bodies but also to assist in rehabilitation. Typically, the purpose of rehabilitative exercise is to restore patients' mobility. In restoring a patient's walking ability for example, assistive apparatuses for gait rehabilitation play a very important role.
The structure of commercially available assistive gait rehabilitation apparatuses, such as those based on U.S. Pat. No. 6,146,315 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,821,233, mainly includes a suspension system for suspending a patient so that the patient is standing on a treadmill and ready to do gait rehabilitation exercise. As the patient's body must be suspended on the suspension system for a long time to stay in the standing position required by the rehabilitative exercise, bodily discomfort tends to ensue. Besides, it is a time-consuming process for the patient to suspend his or her own body onto the suspension system. Those who help the patient put on or take off the gears must also be properly trained in order to assist the patient in getting on or off the suspension system safely. Moreover, an assistive gait rehabilitation apparatus composed of a treadmill and an ancillary suspension system has a very large volume and, although the operating speed of the treadmill can be controlled to provide walking exercises at different paces, does not allow postural adjustment of the patient's lower limbs; consequently, the training effect on the lower limbs leaves much to be desired.